▪ Abstract Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and functioning. Current research on well-being has been derived from two general perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. These two views have given rise to different research foci and a body of knowledge that is in some areas divergent and in others complementary. New methodological developments concerning multilevel modeling and construct comparisons are also allowing researchers to formulate new questions for the field. This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.

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On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(08)61690-6.pdf

Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Agriculturalists are the principal managers of global useable lands and will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades. New incentives and policies for ensuring the sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services will be crucial if we are to meet the demands of improving yields without compromising environmental integrity or public health.

/pdf/agricultural-sustainability-and-intensive-production-1h98l920tu.pdf

Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices

We review in detail a number of approaches that have been adopted to try and explain the remarkable observation of our accelerating universe. In particular we discuss the arguments for and recent progress made towards understanding the nature of dark energy. We review the observational evidence for the current accelerated expansion of the universe and present a number of dark energy models in addition to the conventional cosmological constant, paying particular attention to scalar field models such as quintessence, K-essence, tachyon, phantom and dilatonic models. The importance of cosmological scaling solutions is emphasized when studying the dynamical system of scalar fields including coupled dark energy. We study the evolution of cosmological perturbations allowing us to confront them with the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure and demonstrate how it is possible in principle to reconstruct the equation of state of dark energy by also using Supernovae Ia observational data. We also discuss in detail the nature of tracking solutions in cosmology, particle physics and braneworld models of dark energy, the nature of possible future singularities, the effect of higher order curvature terms to avoid a Big Rip singularity, and approaches to modifying gravity which leads to a late-time accelerated expansion without recourse to a new form of dark energy.

Dynamics of dark energy

Majority decision and Condorcet winners

In this text of the Arturo Tanco Memorial Lecture the author divides the problem of hunger into famine and endemic deprivation, citing many examples, predominantly from India and the sub-Saharan countries of Africa. Remedial action has in the past often been prevented by prevailing pessimism, but by analysing economics, politics, health and educational standards of the affected countries, a number of remedial actions can be suggested. Famines are considered as failures of 'entitlements' which prevent people from purchasing food; this can be overcome by income creation and public intervention, preferably in the form of cash wages. These actions have proved effective in India. Endemic undernourishment and deprivation can benefit similarly from combined public and private action, provided a democratically elected government is susceptible to criticism from the media and the informed public.

Public Action to Remedy Hunger

Amartya Sen, who is an Indian economist and philosopher, wrote this book from a series of conferences he gave at the Boston University. In Identity and Violence, Sen criticizes the advocates, as well as many of the opponents, of the theory of a clash of civilizations. He reminds us of the dangers and irrelevance of reducing one's own identity to a religious dimension, and refutes the validity of any reasoning based on the identification of distinct civilization blocks. Last but not least, he defends for everybody a right to cultural freedom.

Amartya Sen

Papers

Majority decision and Condorcet winners

Public Action to Remedy Hunger

Identité et violence

Functionings and Capability

Markets and Governments